Paula Vince's Blog: The Vince Review, page 69

Should people write biographical fiction?

I've started work on my grandfather's story. I never knew him, as he was born in 1892 and died in the early 1960s, but he lived life to the fullest. As well as serving in both World Wars, he was one of South Australia's champion boxers in the welterweight division, and came from a very large family. All this combined to give him a life of amazing highs and lows, many of which fit into an interesting historical context.

Years ago, my father (his 2nd to youngest son) researched a lot of genealogy about his family, including all the information about his father's early life. He asked me to type it out for him, but Dad's writing is mostly factual statements about what happened, and sometimes it's all around the place. At the time I thought how excellent it would be to read it all in the form of an actual story, but didn't feel up to trying it myself.

Seven years have passed since then, and my dad's remaining brother and sister have passed away, leaving Dad as their father's sole surviving child, and his health is failing too. It made me want to write it even more, but something still made me hesitate for a very long time. I sat down and figured out what it was.

Writing about real people who lived and breathed, especially those who were that close to me, makes me edgy as I'd be sure to misrepresent a lot of what really went on, taking poetic license, putting words in their mouths and making up connecting scenes to join things together. I couldn't help thinking that may not be doing previous generations a favour. Perhaps my efforts would be deplorable in their eyes, but they're dead and can't tell me. Wouldn't that be the ultimate case of a misguided do-gooder, thinking I was doing something great, when I was really doing something cringe-worthy? I didn't want to be that person. Yet the idea still stuck around.

Just over the last week or two, I've read an unrelated book which has encouraged me. The author discussed how God knows each of us better than we know ourselves, which may come across as bizarre since we are the thinkers, observers and formers of our opinions. As we live inside our own heads, groom ourselves and keep a careful eye on how we're presenting ourselves to the outside world, how could anybody possibly know us better?

The answer is, the person who knows the extent of our genealogies knows us far better than we know ourselves. I was intrigued by the scope of what Dad found in his research, yet God knows even more. He's the one who can number the hairs on our heads when we wouldn't have a clue (unless you're totally bald, and then the answer would be zero). Although the author's point was that there is someone even closer than ourselves who loves us accordingly, I got something different and extra from it.

It was a bit silly of me to put off writing this family book until I could do it perfectly, because that could never happen anyway, no matter how much I delved in and dug up. Human, self-kept history is bound to be sketchy and inaccurate in comparison to God's complete bird's-eye view, unfettered by time and space. Even if I was to write a memoir about my teenage years in the eighties, it wouldn't come out on the pages exactly as it happened, although I was there living it.

The bottom line - we might as well give what we've got, if it's intriguing enough to capture our imaginations. With a choice between writing something based on fascinating historical fact, and writing nothing at all, the former may be the best choice, sketchy and inaccurate though it might be. In my case, the information we have recorded is more detailed than I imagined it would be, so I'm going for it.

When you really stop to think about it, books like this are everywhere. Here is a sample from some of my most recent reads to books I read years ago. Most are about really famous people but the same principle applies.

1) Luther and Katharina
Jody Hedlund's take on the love affair between Martin Luther and his wife, Katharina von Bora.
I've reviewed it here.

2)  Lynn Austin's Biblical fiction. 
She uses the Biblical records from King, Chronicles and the prophets to to write the events in the form of novels. There is her Chronicles of the Kings series, and more recently, her Restoration series, focusing on the lives of Zechariah, Ezra and Nehemiah. I've reviewed some here, here and here.

3) Mesu Andrews' Biblical fiction.
She does the same thing, choosing to focus on the possible stories of women who seemed rather marginalised in the Bible, threshing out in her imagination what might have happened between the lines. I've reviewed some here and here.

4) Nancy Moser's novels about famous women throughout history.
She's done Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mozart's sister, Nannerl, that I know of.

5) Carol Preston's Australian colonial fiction based on her family history research.
These books have encouraged me the most, as her stories provide a really valuable insight into what living in the early days of Australian settlement would have been like. If Carol hadn't delved into her ancestry and written the stories, we'd never know. I've reviewed some here, here and here for a start.

And although I haven't read it yet, this is one I intend to get to very soon, because the thought of it intrigues me.


What do you think about the matter? How would you feel to think that somebody who hasn't even been born yet may choose to write about you 50 or 100 years after you've passed away?

'Luther and Katharina' by Jody Hedlund

 

Katharina von Bora has seen nothing but the inside of cloister walls since she was five. In a daring escape, Katharina finds refuge with Martin Luther and seeks his help to pair her with the noble, wealthy husband she desires.

As class tensions and religious conflicts escalate toward the brink of war, Martin Luther believes that each day could be his last and determines he will never take a wife.

As the horrors of the bloody Peasant War break out around them, the proud Katharina and headstrong Martin Luther fight their own battle for true love, in one of the greatest love stories of history.

MY THOUGHTS: 
I once read an article about the true love story between these two, which sounded romantic and well worth making into a novel. I'm glad Jody Hedlund has done it.

The story starts with a mad dash by Katharina and her friends to escape their abbey. She's no Julie Andrews type of nun, and the prison is poles apart from the Sound of Music convent. Young daughters of noblemen were often forced to become nuns, and the place was ruled over by cruel Abbot Baltazar, who Martin Luther had good reason to call, 'the Devil's Sword.' Reading smuggled literature written by Dr Luther convinced the young nuns to flee, and because he felt partly responsible for their homeless plight, he took it upon himself to help provide for their futures. Many times suitable marriages could be arranged, but in Katharina's case, he just didn't want to let her go.

This novel is a real tribute to Martin Luther's heroism. When you're a forward thinker, you must be convicted of the truth enough to risk doing illegal things and even cope with death threats. Back then, you couldn't help keeping in mind that execution wasn't humane, but involved being burned at the stake or other creative methods of torture. When others came to you for mercy, you couldn't help taking responsibility for them too. And showing people how your teachings were backed up by the Bible wasn't a viable option, since common folk had been brought up to believe that delving into the holy book themselves was not wise or safe. Every page in this story shows that Luther's position in history as a hero of faith was earned with sacrifice and agony.

Overall, it's a love story between two people who can see each others' faults, but also their wonderful qualities. Katharina can recognise the truth in a man's teachings without any blinkered, hero-worship of the man himself, which was just what he needed. In the 21st century, a woman with her strong qualities could have been a high-flyer in any industry, but she no doubt added her stamp to world history even though her name and input is virtually unknown.

I've got to admit, their romantic hiccups and misunderstandings drove me crazy at times, and often seemed tied in with Katharina's habit of treating her friends like children who needed to be looked after rather than women of equal footing. If I had a gripe with this book, that would probably be it. She seemed to unconsciously set herself above her peers in strength and wit, always thinking of them as more vulnerable than herself - yet maybe if she'd been less like 'The Leader', they wouldn't have taken the roles of cringing sheep. However, as Luther claimed Katharina's abrasive and imperial ways annoyed him most at the outset, her take-charge manner may all be part of her learning curve and not a problem in others' opinions.

The story got me interested enough to look up the Wikipedia pages of other historical figures who appeared, such as Philipp Melanchthon and Justus Jonas. I liked being transported to sixteenth century Germany, and seeing how some things never really change. For example, Katharina chooses to shun the new Bible which has been written in their modern German, in favour of the ancient Latin ones she'd used all her life. It puts me in mind of some twenty-first century people I've come across who still insist on using only the old King James.

One of my favourite quotes is Katharina, to Luther. 'You're lucky I'm here to help you, Dr Luther. The devil cannot abide me.'

Thanks to the publishers, WaterBrook Multnomah, and NetGalley for my review copy.

4.5 stars

'On This Foundation' by Lynn Austin

When news that the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire, Nehemiah, Jewish cupbearer to King Artaxerxes in Persia, seeks God's guidance. After fasting and prayer, he's given leave to travel to Jerusalem and rebuild the city wall, not anticipating all the dangers that await him on his arrival.

The leaders of the surrounding nations become his fierce enemies, plotting to assassinate him and halt the work. A drought, meanwhile, has left the country impoverished, many families resorting to selling their children as bondservants just to keep from starving.

Capturing the rebuilding of the wall through the eyes of a number of characters, On This Foundation is a powerful exploration of faith in the midst of oppression, and hope that, in spite of appearances, the gracious hand of God is upon those who believe. 

MY THOUGHTS:
If anyone deserves to be the hero of a book, it's Nehemiah. His courage and leadership skills are outstanding in the Bible, and this story starts before his days as the Persian king's cup bearer. I'm glad Lynn Austin began with a traumatic event from his childhood. It sets the scene for his close-knit relationship with his two younger brothers, not to mention why security is his calling and passion. It set me up to want to back Nehemiah all the way.

It's fun to read how the reasonably young governor hides his lack of confidence and relies on the hand of the Lord to see them all through. As a result, his enemies can't help respecting him, much as they despise the threat he presents. Yet Nehemiah is only human and still reacts the way the world does at times, such as when he notices Shallum's daughters working on the wall and ticks them off. What I love about him though, is that he's always willing to admit when his own point of view may be lacking. It takes a woman, Chana, to show him that harbouring internal rage, however righteous it seems, may not be pleasing to God.

Chana is recovering from the loss of the man she was going to marry, but I found it hard to like her new betrothed, Malkijah ben Recab. He had a way of breaking up families to be his bondservants, and not noticing what his sneaky, lecherous sons were doing practically beneath his nose. Through most of the book, I'd been hoping for a loophole to break their betrothal, but the plot holds a few surprises. Malkijah actually delivers one of my favourite lines. 'Don't waste time in useless worry, dear Chana, fretting over what might never happen. Worry doesn't change a single thing. Just live.'

Some of the best characters are among the servants. Nava is a pretty teenager forced to work in Malkijah's household to help repay her parents' loans. She learned what many people haven't grasped far older than sixteen, that circumstances don't always go a person's preferred way, in spite of prayer. Her friend Shimon, the old goat keeper, is a true hero.

I would have liked the addition of a scene from the enemy leaders' perspectives when they realise they haven't outsmarted Nehemiah, in spite of the lengths they went to to bring him down. After all, we sat through plenty of scheming from them when they thought their plans would prevail.

One of my favourite parts of the story is when Nehemiah ponders what should come next in his own life, when the wall building is finished. It's interesting for anyone who has finished a meaningful task we feel is our calling, but flounder when it comes to deciding what to follow it with. We've even coined a modern term for it, 'the next big thing.' Nehemiah's story makes us ask the question, is there always meant to be more glory to follow on from a big success? His enemies are crafty when they send bogus prophets to tempt him with dreams of future leaderships and admiration in Judea. And Nehemiah's eventual way of putting this to the test is a good, simple method any of us may use.

I can't end a review without a quote from the man himself. Nehemiah always recognised the symbolic meaning behind the broken walls, and told the people, 'Rebuilding this physical wall won't do us any good unless we also rebuild our lives with the Almighty One at the centre.'

Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for my review copy.

4.5 stars

'The Devil's Disciple' by George Bernard Shaw

 

2015 Reading Challenge, Week 41 - A Play.
While I was searching, I vaguely remembered seeing this one on TV when I was a teenager. Finding it as a kindle freebie on Amazon clinched it.

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At the most wretched hour between a black night and a wintry morning in the year 1777, Mrs. Dudgeon, of New Hampshire, is sitting up in the kitchen and general dwelling room of her farm house on the outskirts of the town of Websterbridge. She is not a prepossessing woman. No woman looks her best after sitting up all night; and Mrs. Dudgeon's face, even at its best, is grimly trenched by the channels into which the barren forms and observances of a dead Puritanism can pen a bitter temper and a fierce pride. She is an elderly matron who has worked hard and got nothing by it except dominion and detestation in her sordid home, and an unquestioned reputation for piety and respectability among her neighbors, to whom drink and debauchery are still so much more tempting than religion and rectitude, that they conceive goodness simply as self-denial. This conception is easily extended to others - denial, and finally generalized as covering anything disagreeable. So Mrs. Dudgeon, being exceedingly disagreeable, is held to be excee-dingly good. Short of flat felony, she enjoys complete license except for amiable weaknesses of any sort, and is consequently, without knowing it, the most licentious woman in the parish on the strength of never having broken the seventh commandment or missed a Sunday at the Presbyterian church.

MY THOUGHTS:
This is an American satire with tinges of dark humour set during the War of Independence. It takes place in 1777 at Westerbridge, a small frontier town.

The self-proclaimed devil's disciple is Richard Dudgeon, a young man who is regarded as not just the rotten egg of his family but the whole town. He's simply grown fed up with the mean spirits and hypocrisy he sees from several supposedly devout religious folk, and lives life on his own terms. He might have got along a little better if he didn't call himself that, but Richard is a bit of a stirrer.

Judith Anderson is the pretty, young wife of the old local minister. She fears and hates Richard because of his behaviour and reputation, but one day when British soldiers storm into her house to arrest her husband, the devil's disciple does something truly astounding. She has only a matter of moments to decide whether to re-think everything she's ever taken on board about him.

In many ways, this is really Judith's story. She's the only one with much character development, including Richard. His own epiphany obviously took place in the past before this story began, so he's basically the same man at the finish as he was at the start, except for a bit of a crisis concerning the display of his softer feelings. However, she has to turn upside down everything she ever knew, before it's too late.

Judith starts off in the first act parroting what the supposed moral guys are saying. Circumstances force her to respond to a genuine show of sacrifice and goodness from the least likely person. If I'd been an actress, I'd love to play her role. She genuinely detests a man one day, then tells him she'd go to the ends of the earth with him the next.

I'm sure lots of male actors would have wanted the role of 'Gentlemanly Johnny', the British general Burgoyne who's in charge of the court case in the second act. Based on a real person, he's a gruff dandy with a reputation for finding fault with everything, and delivers lots of memorable lines. These include, 'Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like. It is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.'

It's a work of literature that needs to be read as a text to get most out of it, rather than just watched. We read things we wouldn't necessarily otherwise know, such as the history of General Burgoyne, who is 'gallant enough to have made a distinguished marriage by an elopement, witty enough to write successful comedies, aristocratically connected enough to have had opportunities of high military distinction.

Here's another example. When the devil's disciple inherits his father's property, leaving his mother out in the cold, we're told the courts will sustain the claim of a man-and that man the eldest son, against any woman if they can. Then in parentheses, it goes on to say, 'Remember at this time, Mary Wollstonecraft is as yet only a girl of 18, and her vindication of the rights of women is still 14 years off.'

It's interesting to read a play, after several years, reminding me how much I used to enjoy them. With novels, we're advised to show and not tell. Not so with plays, which have so many directions about the emotions and detailed facial expressions the characters are supposedly to showing.

Overall, it was a fun way of spending a couple of hours. As a bonus, it really brings to light different types of heroism and reminds us not to make snap judgments.

4.5 stars

A Good Story Belongs to Everyone

I was once congratulated at a party for sharing funny jokes and stories on Facebook. The person I was talking to praised my posts for being either food-for-thought or day-brighteners. I smiled and thanked him, although I honestly didn't think it was worthy of a compliment. All the creators and artists had done the hard work putting them together. My only input was clicking 'share'. I shrugged it off as the easiest praise I'd ever received. Only in retrospect did I begin to reflect that he was actually onto something. I started to see how sharing things and passing them on actually makes them ours.

It started dawning on me when I was directed to a blog where someone had reviewed one of my novels (Best Forgotten.) I read her lovely review and then clicked on the comments. A friend of the blogger had written something like, 'Thanks so much for the recommendation. I'm really getting into this book.' And then the girl who wrote the review replied in words to this effect. 'I'm so glad you're enjoying it. I couldn't help thinking it was tailor made for you all the way through. Glad to have been able to help your reading pile grow.'

That was it. It was pretty simple, but made my day. There I was, a total stranger, and these two ladies had adopted my story and made it their own. One of them was thanking the other for sharing her thoughts. And she was accepting the thanks, as if Best Forgotten was her own. And in a big way, it was. I like that a lot, and it's just as it should be.

Copyright laws exist to protect authors and creators from direct plagiarism, and rightly so. But at a deeper level, when a story is released into the world in the form of a book or screen play, it becomes common property.

Somethings in our hearts responds to something that was in the heart of the author. That's why fan groups are formed around popular stories, where people discuss the plot and dress up like the characters. It's why my daughter has ordered so many T-shirts featuring her favourite stories. Emma is the perfect fan to have, because she walks around doing everyday things, but quietly claiming 'Game of Thrones', 'Hunger Games' and many others as her own, from the moment she rolls out of bed and gets dressed. What a great free advert for the writers. (The photo above is just a section of Emma's bedroom wall, which she's covered with different posters, so she virtually sleeps in a collage.)

I've seen the pay-off continue for her, in the form of ice-breakers. Just yesterday, we were in a seaside Goodwill store at Victor Harbor, and the lady behind the counter noticed Emma's Game of Thrones T-shirt and started engaging her in a long conversation about whether or not Jon Snow is really dead, and then they moved on to talking about other stories. Fan T-shirts seem to be a great way of connecting with other members of your own tribe.

It's great that the sum of good stories is like a potluck supper of the best type. Everyone brings something to the table, and it becomes one big, luscious, festive spread which anyone can share.

Anne Lamott said, 'When you love something like reading, or drawing, or music, or nature, it surrounds you with a sense of connection to something great.'

And I love J.K. Rowling's response to the throngs of people who have ever said, 'I wish I received my invitation to Hogwarts when I was 11.' She tweeted something like, 'You all received your personal invitation to Hogwarts the moment you opened the Harry Potter books and got engrossed in them.'

I like to think of many people contributing to the wealth of the story banquet by either adding their own plate to the table or partaking of what's there already with great relish and recommending each dish to others.

'The Fold' by Peter Clines

 
2015 Reading Challenge, Week 40 - A Mystery or Thriller.

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The folks in Mike Erikson's small New England town would say he's just your average, everyday guy. And that's exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he's chosen isn’t much of a challenge to someone with his unique gifts, but he’s content with his quiet and peaceful existence.

That is, until an old friend presents him with an irresistible mystery, one that Mike is uniquely qualified to solve: far out in the California desert, a team of DARPA scientists has invented a device they affectionately call the Albuquerque Door. Using a cryptic computer equation and magnetic fields to “fold” dimensions, it shrinks distances so that a traveler can travel hundreds of feet with a single step.

The invention promises to make mankind’s dreams of teleportation a reality. And, the scientists insist, traveling through the Door is completely safe.

Yet evidence is mounting that this miraculous machine isn’t quite what it seems—and that its creators are harboring a dangerous secret.  

MY THOUGHTS:

The intriguing blurb and clever cover made me want to read this book straight away, but it turned out to be a bit of a letdown.

Mike Erikson is a high school English teacher working beneath his intellectual capacity. Along with a sky high IQ, he has an eidetic memory, giving him complete photographic and instantaneous recall at all times. One day, his friend Reggie who works for DARPA almost pleads with Mike to take on a special job over his holidays. A team has been working on a device (the Albuquerque Door) which enables people to cover immense distances with just a few steps, but Reggie fears something sinister may be happening behind the scenes. It will be Mike's job to figure out whether or not everything is on the level.

After a riveting prologue, the first part of the book was very slow moving. With each new chapter, I hoped something exciting or breathtaking would occur, but no. There was quite a lot of technical chat about how the device was built, when all I wanted was to see first hand what happened when it was used. Maybe science buffs would enjoy the intricacies, but I'm a reader wanting to get stuck into a story, and it got beyond 40% on my kindle before anything noteworthy happened.

The dialogue is funny at times and flows well, but every character had to show their most unpleasant side, to fit the requirements of the crawling plot. Each team member had their own version of prickly defensiveness, as they feared Mike was going to pull the plug on their work. He in turn, had to be annoying, persistent and nosy. From the start, there were hints of attraction brewing between him and Jamie, and sure enough, she gradually opens to him. By then I didn't care about that subplot, as they'd both been getting on my nerves for some time. And I grew sick and tired of the over-used analogy running all through the story, comparing Mike's mighty brain to the movement of ants. It must have been repeated a thousand times.

Although I wanted things to happen, when they started, things got pretty strange. I was glad to finish this book.

Thanks to Crown Publishing and Blogging for Books for my review copy.

2 stars

'The End of Me' by Kyle Idleman

Are you sometimes perplexed with Jesus’s teaching? Do you really want what he wants? Bestselling author Kyle Idleman reveals that the key to the abundant life Jesus promised lies in embracing His inside-out way of life.

As he examines Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Kyle unpacks the many counter-intuitive truths, including: brokenness is the way to wholeness, mourning is the path to blessing, and emptiness is required in order to know true fullness. Ultimately you will discover how Jesus transforms you as you begin to live out these paradoxical principles. Because only when you come to the end of yourself can you begin to experience the full, blessed, and whole life Jesus offers.

MY THOUGHTS:
It's always refreshing to come across a book with a theme like this, when so many people promote the opposite point of view. Kyle Idleman begins with a letter. It has the salutation, 'Dear Me' and many of us could surely appropriate what follows. Basically, it's something like, 'I've spent my life looking out for you, keeping you happy and putting your desires first, but here's why I can't keep it up.' And that's what the rest of the book addresses.

Idleman looks at some of Jesus' paradoxical commandments, then goes on to argue that paradoxes form our lives. Like Simon the Pharisee, we're often broken but don't know it, because the world tells us we're on the right track. And like the Pharisees, although we may be legends in our own minds, the things we care about don't necessarily match the things God cares about.

I'm glad Idleman highlights the special features of our day and age, namely social media, on which we can confidently control what we want people to know about us. He draws attention to sneaky ways we have of promoting ourselves without seeming to do anything of the sort, such as the 'humblebrag.' We're reminded that Pharisees might have had huge Twitter followings had they lived in our time. The question of how much we do to be seen is one we should ask ourselves not just once or twice but regularly.

Kyle Idleman suggests way to run counter-culture to the world, to help us become more pure in heart when our insides are more likely to match our outsides. These include voluntary confession of sin, giving sacrificially and anonymously, treating others as better than ourselves, and asking for help. He expounds upon each of these in turn.

We're left with timely warnings such as this. 'Woe unto those who play the game, trying to inflate their reputations by being someone they're not. They will ultimately collapse from sheer exhaustion, their pretenses collapsing with them.'

Thanks to David C Cook and NetGalley for my review copy.

3.5 stars

Six novels with celebrities as main characters

One of the benefits of reading fiction is that we get to experience different lives through the characters for a short time. Celebrities lead lives most of us can only ever dream of. This list of books contains main characters who have dealt with big-time fame and fortune. Some have managed to achieve it while others have been born into it. Some are girls and some are guys. While some keep on with their amazing careers, others decide the cost is too high a price to pay. They're interesting reads for times when we want to imagine how it might feel to be media darlings, hounded by paparazzi, showered with accolades and enjoying physical luxuries.


6) A Thing of Beauty, by Lisa Samson.
The heroine, Fiona Hume, has chosen to live life like a hermit in a rambling old mansion in which she compulsively collects antiques and bric-a-brac. She was the child of two movie stars and won an Oscar herself, but terrible incidents in her past have caused her to put the lifestyle of a star behind her.
My review is here


5) Freefall, by Kristen Heiztmann.
A young woman finds herself alone in Hawaii with amnesia, and gradually comes to remember that she's a star of the screen. This makes life interesting both for her and the new friends who were trying to help her.
My review is here.

4) Screen Play, by Chris Coppernoll.
Harper Gray is a budding actress who is happy to achieve minor roles in stage shows to help pay her bills, but circumstances come together to help her score an amazing role in a Hollywood movie which turns her life around.
My review is here.

3) The Wind in the Wheat, by Reid Arvin.
Andrew Miracle (he has a great name) is a farm boy whose musical ability catches the eye of a talent scout. Andrew believes his dreams and prayers have come true when they want to make him a Christian music star. That is, until he realises how many sacrifices will be required of him, and starts to question what's genuine and what isn't. As this was written by an author who knew the nature of the industry well, it's hard to stop thinking about long after you finish.

These next two are Australian novels written by friends of mine, and I highly recommend them both.

2) A Simple Mistake, by Andrea Grigg.
Lainey and Nick used to go out together in their teens, but circumstances split them apart. Some years later, they both decide to give their relationship another try, but there's the added complication of Nick now being a star of both the music arena and big screen. From being anonymous, Lainey is now thrown into the spotlight too, through her association with Nick. She never would have imagined that re-kindling her old romance would have so many complications.

1) Ehvah After, by Rose Dee.
This novel is hot off the press. The heroine, Ehvah Rowe, was brought up in the spotlight, but her famous parents were tragically killed in an accident. Since then, she's found her own notoriety hasn't helped stave off loneliness and disillusionment, and now she's witnessed a murder beneath her own roof. Before she knows it, she's trying to steer clear of a group of desperate crooks. The author, Rose Dee, was one of my co-authors in The Greenfield Legacy, and for anybody who knows her, there's plenty of the suspense, mystery and romance set in the tropics of Queensland you've come to expect.

So these are just picks I've read. If you've read any novels about the rich and famous you'd like to recommend, let us know in the comments.

'The Truth about Peacock Blue' by Rosanne Hawke

 

2015 Reading Challenge, Week 39 - A book with a colour in the title.

I attended the launch of book a couple a weeks ago, bearing a long peacock feather. Rosanne Hawke is a friend and fellow South Australian, and I've enjoyed her work for many years. This book lives up to the impact of her others, and fits well into this week's category.

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 A powerful story about one girl's fight for justice in Pakistan.

Everything changes for Aster the night her brother dies. Suddenly she's the only hope of the family, and instead of an early marriage to a boy from her small village in Pakistan, her parents decide to send her to the government high school in her brother's place. Aster is excited about this unexpected opportunity for a career, but, as a Christian, she is unprepared her for the difficulties of attending a Muslim school: her fellow students are far from welcoming and one of her teachers takes an instant dislike to her. One day, she is accused of intentionally making a spelling mistake to insult the holy prophet. Her teacher is incensed and accuses her of blasphemy. A violent crowd forms outside the school and Aster is taken to jail to be tried at a later date.

A young social justice lawyer takes up her case, and Aster's Australian cousin, Maryam, starts an online campaign to free Aster. But will it be enough to save her?

MY THOUGHTS:
 
Fourteen-year-old Aster Suleiman is thrust into a nightmare. She knew she wasn't her Islamic teacher's favourite student, but a mistake on a High School exam has her arrested on a charge of blasphemy. As the teacher, Mrs Abdul, supposedly destroyed the offensive paper on the spot, her word alone is enough to shatter the lives of several people. Aster's parents have recently lost their son to a violent asthma attack, and now their precious daughter faces a death penalty.

I found Aster's plight extremely moving, especially as she is presented from the start as loving, merry-hearted and peaceable, like my own teenage daughter. Her greatest misfortune is simply to find herself on the wrong side of an extremist authority figure in a country like Pakistan, where blasphemy accusations can be used like a weapon. Through this powerful story, she becomes the representative for members of minority groups who face unjust persecution.

Peacock Blue is Aster's online identity, and the campaign to set her free is taken up by her cousin Maryam, who lives in Australia. This comes across really well, as peacocks are beautiful and inoffensive, like Asta herself, and their feathers are collected as symbols of renewal and patience.

As I read, I couldn't help noticing the huge potential for ripple effects. Minor characters are touched upon enough to show that they have astounding and terrifying stories of their own. Some are women who share Aster's prison cell and the adjoining one. Others are folk who leave comments on Maryam's blog posts. If their stories were all to be told at large, the effect would be far-reaching and never-ending.

The power of the written word comes through strongly. It's there when Aster receives supportive notes from friends and strangers, and when cell mates are impacted by the tales she tells from the Bible and books such as 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Aster is encouraged to write her own story, just to increase people's awareness of atrocities which can so easily be hushed and swept under the carpet. Some of her emotions come across really helpful, although I've never been through such trauma in my lifetime. For example, when Aster can't feel God's presence in her squalid surroundings, the passing of time gives her a revelation about the true nature of happiness.

One of my favourite quotes from this novel compares prejudice to a dung heap. 'It seethes with life when it is left alone. We need to dig this dung heap up and spread it over the ground for all the world to see.' And as some of the less extreme characters ask, 'Is God so small that we have to protect Him from a child?'

I hope this novel will help make more of us increasingly aware of the plights of those who are arrested on a whim and given unfair trials, along with those poor asylum seekers who are denied entry to safe countries like Australia, because world attention may be a huge step toward stopping it all.

5 stars

You may also enjoy Rosanne Hawke's guest post about writing for young adults, here.

Slowing Down to Read Massive Books

I got a lot of interesting fuel for blog posts from My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead. Here's another example from her research which was an eye-opener to me as well as her. When Mead visited Coventry, the town where George Eliot lived a good portion of her life, she went into a local bookstore to try to buy a copy of Middlemarch. To Mead's surprise and annoyance, there were only abridged or condensed versions available (unlike my brick-sized Penguin edition below). Nowhere in the entire town could she find a copy of the classic in its entirety. Rebecca Mead sadly chalked it up as a sign of the ridiculously fast paced twenty-first century lifestyles we're living.

How interesting that publishing houses seem to assume that abridged classics will be more in demand than the originals. They are catering to a public comprised of skimmers, who want to claim that they've read Middlemarch but are unwilling to put in the hard work. They'd prefer to get it done as quickly as possible. We've adapted to living life on the run, flitting from one task to the next. We assume that a long list of items ticked off a 'To Do' list is a sign of day well spent. I've bought into that myth myself, and recently started to question the philosophy behind it. Maybe a day well spent is when we get only a couple of things done, but give them the depth of time and attention they deserve.

We're living in an age when we're counseled to keep things quick and short, so we can zoom on the million other jobs waiting to be done. Tweets need to be 140 characters or fewer. We're told to keep blog posts and book reviews brief, because 'people are busy', as if that's a really positive thing! What if it's really deplorable?

I stumbled upon an article by Hugh McGuire entitled, 'How reading can make you feel less busy.' He describes how he constantly felt tired, distracted and irritable, and sensed that his stress had an electronic feel to it. The crunch came when he realised he'd read only four books in 2014, even though he loved reading. But he figured out that with every four sentences he read, he was either battling urges to check emails and social media or falling asleep.

Training himself to start reading real books again was part of McGuire's stress management plan. He cites scientific studies which indicate that flitting from topic to topic as we tend to do, helps exhaust us. The human brain is not really designed to multi-task. I can't help thinking how the lives we live are poles apart from those of even our recent ancestors. I visited a small ghost town on the tip of South Australia's Yorke Peninsula with my husband and kids. It was inhabited until the 1960s and in a lot of that time, residents had to wait months for visits from the postman. Maybe having the whole world's information at our fingertips is a step too far in the opposite direction.

In the Victorian era, there weren't so many labour-saving devices, but people possibly thought with more depth and intensity. With our twenty-first century technology and mod-cons, you might assume we'd have more time freed up to be deep and intense if we want to be. Instead, many folk are scattered and unfocused with sick, slack attention spans.



Reading is a terrific slow down activity. For the last few years, I've been setting myself reading challenges. I've done the Goodreads Reading Challenge, and I'm currently on the home run of my 2015 Reading Challenge. They've been great, but do help me put pressure on myself to meet the criteria, and tick off a book from each category each week. I'm thinking that maybe next year, I'll take some time to tackle a book that forces me to slow down even more.

We seem to be all about breadth in our activities, at the expense of depth. Maybe reading the occasional massive book may help us cultivate depth again. We expect our modern stories to zoom straight the point and rivet us from the first page. People advise writers to cut out verbosity and waffle. Even though that's good advice to a point, it may be a sacrifice when beautiful descriptive passages which invite us to linger and ponder get the flick. If you're thinking the same way I am, why not consider a challenge like Middlemarch, or Nicholas Nickelby, or Anna Karenina? A few weeks ago, I discovered William Thackeray's Pendennis on the shelves of my second hand shop for just a dollar or two, and decided I might tackle it as one of next year's reads. Don't hold me accountable though, because 'might' isn't the same as 'will.' It has 1060 pages of minuscule writing.